AGC wants to take blogger to court for contempt

SINGAPORE - THE Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) would on Monday seek the High Court's permission to take legal action against blogger Alex Au Wai Pang for contempt of court.

If the judge rules that there is sufficient basis for the case to proceed, court papers will then be served on Mr Au, who will be entitled to a full hearing to decide if he has "scandalised the judiciary", as claimed by the AGC.

The blogger is alleged to have done so through two articles he wrote and published last month on his sociopolitical blog Yawning Bread, the AGC said on Friday.

The AGC's application, filed at the High Court on Nov 14, is over the blog posts "377 Wheels Come Off Supreme Court's Best-Laid Plans", published on Oct 5, and "Church Sacks Employee And Sues Government - On One Ground Right, On Another Ground Wrong", put up on Oct12.

The AGC claims that in the first post, the 61-year-old had accused the Supreme Court of "deliberately manipulating hearing dates" to allow the Chief Justice to influence a case to determine the constitutionality of Section 377A, which criminalises sex between men.

This year, two similar cases on Section 377A came before the courts.

In one case, which was first filed in 2010, the CJ "would have to recuse himself... since he was the Attorney-General at the time" to avoid a conflict of interest, wrote Mr Au.

Thus, the way out for the courts was to actually delay the judgment in this case. This was done so that it could then take into account how the CJ may rule in the second Section 377A case, Mr Au claimed.